CONVOCATION 25 JANUARY 2015: Commemorating the 30 January School Day of Nonviolence

School Day of Nonviolence

Commemorating the 30 January School Day of Non-Violence, remembering Gandhi and the values that he represents, Women in Black, through our feminist, anti-militarist and non-violence ideology express our conviction that in addition to being against violence, one must seek alternatives to learn how to preclude that conflicts result in more violence, rather in more equity and justice for the civil society. We consider that to the end that these changes occur it is necessary to provide this learning in schools and in everyday life.

The school children, however, and all the populace see that those in power continue to pursue their need to maintain the privileges of a few, the most favored. This is demonstrated by various realities: the Melilla fence; the people illegally pushed back from Spanish territory to Morocco; the refusal to provide asylum (violating signed international laws); the negation of universal health care to those who are undocumented; the stigmatization of immigrants under the pretext that they take jobs away or use our resources; and the violence against women, which grows daily. This is the way to promote values that correspond to a social model of violence, fomenting fear, social control, machismo, and blind obedience – relationships of power based on submission, in the resolution of conflicts through violence and force, and disdain of those who are considered weaker and different.

In order to achieve this, they promote militarism, developing a culture that educates in the socialization of the idea that armed defense, war and violence are the only solutions and therefore needing to re-arm, prepare. Visits to educational centers by armed forces and State security forces help this approach to become internalized.

We declare our preoccupation:

♀ Concerning the current models in which we currently educate children and youths, as well as the exclusion of gender in school courses along with the worrisome rebound of machista values in the classrooms.

♀ Because in the long economic crisis we are living through the budget for public education has diminished while for private education it has increased. At the same time, the military budget has increased covertly, and we continue without questioning the budget for defense.

Women in Black want schools that will collaborate in the building of a society that struggles for peace and, to that end, we consider that:

♀ It is urgent and necessary to strengthen work in Education for Peace with a gender perspective that has as its goal the formation of non-violent individuals.

♀ Non-violence is a path, a process, a continuing learning, for the individual as well as in human relations; it is an ethical tool for social transformation which fortifies those who practice it and takes power away from those who are violent.

♀ One should work in school and in society for an equality that will not repeat violence or the power of the patriarchy.

Military expenditures for schools and hospitals

“The money spent on the Invincible Armada is needed more by the poor of Spain.”
Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada (From Avila) in a letter to Felipe II.

“We know [it is in our conscience] that we pay through the nose for the army and in a critical moment it would not save us from any bad situation…., finding ourselves all persuaded that any war would end in disaster”
Emilia Pardo Bazán, Epilogue to “Pro patria”

Translation: Trisha Novak, USA, with the collaboration of Yolanda Rouiller